"And are these the people you expect me to show Maitland?" said Mark, rising from the table; "I'd rather, fifty times rather, write and say, 'We cannot receive you; our house is full, and will be for a month to come.'"
"Yes, dear Mark, that is the really sensible way to look at it. Nobody nowadays has any scruple in such matters. One is invited from Monday to Thursday, but on no possible pretext can he stay to Friday." And so Mrs. Trafford ran away, heaping, by apparent consolations, coals of fire on his angry head.
"I think you had better get Alice to write the letter herself," said Bella; "I'm sure she will do it with great tact and discretion."
"Pray do," added she. "Entrust me with the despatch, and I promise you the negotiation will be completed then and there."
"It is quite bad enough to shut the door in a man's face, without jeering at him out of the window," said Mark; and he dashed out of the room in a rage.
"I wish he had shown us his friend's note," said Alice. "I'm quite certain that his anger has far, more to do with that epistle than with any of our comments upon it."
"I'm very sorry Mark should be annoyed," said Bella; "but I'm selfish enough to own that, if we escape Mr. Maitland's visit, I shall deem the bargain a good one."
"I suspect Mr. Maitland does not intend to honor us by his company, and that we may spare ourselves all the embarrassment of preparing for it," said Lady Lyle. And now the three ladies set themselves to consider in committee that oft-vexed problem of how to make a country-house hold more people than it had room for, and how to persuade the less distinguished of the guests that they are "taking out" in cordiality all that their reception wants in convenience. One difficulty presented itself at every step, and in a variety of shapes. Never before had the Abbey been full of visitors without Tony Butler being there to assist in their amusement,--Tony, equally at home on land and on sea, the cavalier of young ladies, the safe coachman of mammas, the guide to all that was noteworthy, the fisherman, the yachtsman whom no weather disconcerted, no misadventure could provoke,--so good-tempered and so safe; ay, so safe! for Tony never wanted to flirt with the young heiress, nor teach her schoolboy brother to smoke a short pipe. He had neither the ambition to push his fortune unfairly, nor to attach his junior to him by unworthy means. And the sisters ran over his merits, and grew very enthusiastic about traits in him which, by inference, they implied were not the gifts of others nearer home.